Most plant biomass materials, such as wood, are referred to as lignocellulosic material and comprise three main components, namely, cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin.                Cellulose: is a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units and will usually comprise 7,000 to 15,000 glucose molecules.        Hemi cellulose: is a polysaccharide related to cellulose but is derived from several sugars including glucose, xylose, mannose, galactose, rhamnose and arabinose and consists of shorter chains of around 200 sugar units.        Lignin is: a cross-linked macromolecule with molecular masses in excess of 10,000 and is relatively hydrophobic and aromatic in nature. Lignin is rich in the phenylpropanoids, such asp-coumaryl alcohol, coniferyl alcohol and sinapyl alcohol.        
More recently, our co-pending International patent application PCT/GB2009/002731 describes a method of processing biomass which comprises the digestion of biomass material in an acidic aqueous medium, subjected to ultrasonic waves and separating the biomass into its constituents of lignin, hemi-cellulose and cellulose.
We have now found a new processing system which is advantageous in the treatment of biomass material and the fractionation of the biomass into its constituent parts of lignin, hemi-celluloses and cellulose.